Welcome to the 76th Battalion's official blogspot!

This will be the official home of the 76th Independent Battalion on blogspot.com

Who are we?

We are a group of dedicated friends and fans of the criminally short-lived Joss Whedon series, 'Firefly'. If you are new to this fandom, or have not even heard of 'Firefly', or the wonderful film it spawned, 'Serenity' (in which case, we're not doing our job well enough!) fans of this show are often referred to as 'browncoats' in deference to the nickname for former soldiers in the (mainly outlying) Independent forces, who took up arms against being forcibly taken over by the ruling, central government, known as the Alliance.

In November 2006 a couple of our number, who were friends through fireflyfans.net, were talking about costumes for Dragon*Con 2007, and Tristan mentioned an idea he had for an independent uniform, based on those seen in flashbacks in the series. Tristan is a gifted costume builder, with years of experience in theatre & Ren Faire costuming. He wondered if anyone else would be interested in having a uniform too, so that there would be the appearance of a few soldiers on the look out for 'purple bellies' (the browncoat's nickname for the Alliance forces). Tristan was uncertain whether to ask a few friends as he was not sure they would like to spend the anual dragon*con parade following his dream! Not only was his friend, Magdalena, keen to do just that herself, but she suggested he post a thread on fireflyfans.net and see if there was any interest.

The rest, as they say, is history!

That thread led, within a few days, to several enthusiastic people volunteering to take part in a small party of soldiers... and pretty soon it was looking like it wasn't going to be so small! By the end of a month it was clear that organisation was required. Through a process of suggestions and polls we had a name, taken from a deleted scene in the opening/pilot episode, "Serenity" in which Zoe says to Malcolm Reynolds, "we lost 4 more from the 76th last night". In no time at all a talented, and enthusiastic group had formed a command structure, a badge for the battalion, and a web site to encourage new recruits. The web site is here: http://76thbattalion.dragonfyredawn.com and the forums where members get to know each other, share information about upcoming conventions and update regulations, as well as just sharing in our love of the 'verse, is here: http://www.76thbattalion.proboards59.com/index.cgi You need to sign up, as a member of the 76th Battalion to join the forum, and applications can be emailed to: applications_76th@hotmail.com

Before we knew it Tristan had become Commanding Officer (CO) of the 76th, Colonel Tristan O'Tearney, and was very blessed to have two experienced men with him at the helm, both military men with a history and understanding of online fandom forums, The Executive Officer (XO), Major Mikhail Lazarus, and the Sergeant Major (Doc Jubal) Harris. Whilst these men make the day to day running decisions of the battalion, and generally oversee things on the boards and in communications with our members, it is a group-owned battalion, with regions divided into companies and regional command for these areas.

On Saturday 1st September, 2007, just 9 months & two weeks after it's conception, the 76th Battalion officially arrived on the scene, with 35 members marching, in full uniform, in Dragon*Con's popular anual parade through the streets of Atlanta, Georgia. There are a few photos from that event in the slideshow at the top left hand corner of this blog, and more will be added as they are taken.

So, that's a little idea of how we started. There will be more blogs to come about how we developed into the warm community we are today, where our inspirations and affiliations have come from and what the future holds for us!

Our forums contain threads of ideas for upcoming conventions, plans for get togethers, or shindigs, updates on official rules and regulations, promotions, merchandise, uniforms, specialty assignments, friendships, birthdays, debates, common interests and all things to do with the Firefly 'verse!

We hope you'll follow our blog and share this with others you know who might be interested in supporting the 76th Battalion! Please feel free to publicly follow us, and if you would like to add our blog to your links on your profile, that would be wonderful too!

Looking forward to your comments, too!